Sunday in New York

December 24th

I stood by the Christmas tree and admired how prettily decorated it was. Our first Christmas together. Hudson came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me, kissing my neck. "What's up?" He asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, "What do you usually do Christmas Eve?"

"Not much...I haven't spent a Christmas with Charles and his family in six years. Usually I'd just hang out with Jules."

I thought for a moment and turned around to face him. "And I usually hang out with Amelia. You, me and Jules are spending tomorrow with my family and Amelia's heading up to Vermont in the morning...why don't we start a new tradition? Let's invite them over and we can spend tonight together, we'll order chinese food, open gifts." I grinned.

He smiled back and stroked the side of my face. "You remind me of a little girl when you look at me that way." He chuckled and then nodded, "Okay, I'll call Jules and you call Amelia, then afterwards I'll order the food."

"Yay!" I laughed, clapping my hands before running into the room to get my phone.

"Hey, why don't you invite Christian over too?" He called.

I paused and didn't say anything until I came out of the room again, peeking around the corner at him. "Christian?"

He nodded, "Yeah, you know at first I thought he was a bit...uptight, very suit-sy and well-mannered, but after hanging out with him for so long, he's pretty cool. Call him."

"Oh, okay, for sure." I nodded, going back into the room and sitting on the bed. I didn't tell Hudson about Christian almost kissing me because I felt it wasn't important. Christian was drunk and really wasn't that close to doing it either, so I didn't want to make something out of nothing. So I called both him and Amelia.

The food arrived not long after Amelia, Christian and Jules had arrived. We sat in the living room on the floor with the fireplace going and the beers chilled, laughing and sharing stories of disastrous holidays. "Okay, okay! Let's open gifts, guys I'm so excited for you each to open your gifts. I feel like Santa!" Amelia giggled, standing up and going to the door to fetch a bag of gifts.

After passing each of us a gift, she eagerly awaited our opening of them. "Well, go ahead!" She laughed. So one at a time we all opened our gifts.

"A grey tie." Christian laughed, "And...oh Amelia, how did you know? The Fifty Shades of Grey series. Thank you!" Making the rest of us laugh.

Jules opened his and got a bottle of red wine from 1997 and tickets to The Rolling Stones concert at Madison Square Garden in May.

It was Hudson's turn, so he opened his gift. "New knives, by Gordon Ramsey. Thanks Ameels, I love them, I was just about to buy myself some new ones too. Thank you." Hudson grinned, admiring his kitchen knives.

"Look in the bottom of the bag!" She grinned.

"Oh, okay?" Hudson dug through the bag and burst out laughing, "Wow, Ameels, you gave me the same books."

Amelia giggled, "I thought that in preparation for marriage, whenever that will be, you should read up on some things and-"

"Okay okay, please, don't say anything more." Hudson laughed.

"Your turn Avery!" She smiled.

I hesitated and began unwrapping it, lifting the lid of the box. "Oh...wow, this is wildly inappropriate." I chuckled, looking down at some sheer lingerie in the box. Hudson started to laugh.

"It's for the honeymoon. Think of this as an early wedding gift too, but look underneath them."

I gulped and pushed them out of the way and found a gift card underneath. "Oh, good, I thought it was going to be something incredibly explicit." I laughed, picking up the card to Victoria's Secret and turning it over. I dropped it in the box. "$500, Amelia? This is too much."

"It's not! Just think of it as a wedding gift." She laughed.

"Are you sure?" I smiled.

"Positive."

Hudson looked at me, "Well, since there's so much talk about the wedding, we have part one of each of your guys' gifts." I smiled at him as he got up and went into the bedroom. Soon he came back with three black envelopes, giving one to each of them.

They were confused but opened them. Amelia of course was the first to react, screaming. "You set a date!" She hugged both Hudson and I and then held the invitation out in front of her.

"We've decided on forever
and forever begins when we
Avery Moore
and
Holbrook Hudson
unite in marriage.

We kindly request the presence of
Amelia Dashwood
At a private ceremony celebrating
the sacred union of marriage between
Miss Moore and Mr. Hudson
On Friday, the thirty-first of December
two thousand and twelve
at six o'clock in the evening
in loft 3-C of the Gray Lofts Building

This is an invitation only ceremony and afterwards
a party that will include dancing, photos,
memories, and drinks with alcohol in them. This is
only for close personal friends and family

So please no plus ones or dead beats.

Hope to see you there!"

"The 31st? That's in...seven days!" Jules smiled. "And I'm performing the ceremony!"

"Wow...thanks for the invitation. And congratulations." Christian bit his lip.

"And now my gifts for each of you." Hudson smiled, crawling to the tree and bringing back an armful of gifts. "Now, my girl has more gifts for obvious reasons, but here you all go."

He gave Amelia passes to the Fall Fashion Week in February which made her laugh, cry, and scream. She loved them. He gave Jules a plane ticket back to England for two weeks in January, which Jules got a little emotional over, but managed to keep his cool. And for Christian, he gave him one of his prized bottles of scotch and a membership to Raines Law Room, which meant that whenever Christian would go, he'd always have a special booth reserved.

But going back to the scotch, Hudson shared this story with me. He had these four bottles of scotch that were worth more than any other drink he's ever had. He gave one bottle to Jules after they bought the restaurant together. To Hudson, giving Jules a bottle meant that their friendship had passed the test. That it wasn't just some thing that would fizzle in six months, that Hudson knew that they'd be friends forever. And they've stayed this way; best friends. So for him to give Christian a bottle of scotch, it wasn't just giving someone a drink, it was letting him know that this friendship was starting out just like him and Jules.

Hudson's a sentimental guy, a big softie like I call him.

"Hudson, this is...this is really special. Thank you." Christian smiled, admiring the bottle.

"You're a good guy. You deserve it." Hudson smiled back. He turned to me, "And now your gifts."

I received some sweet and sentimental things from him, but this one I just opened was beyond perfect. I smiled as I took out a string of pearls from an ivory box. "Love, these are perfect."

He kissed my cheek, "These belonged to my mother."

I quickly looked at him and then look up at the pictures on the fireplace. I stood up and walked over, taking a framed picture of him and her, gazing at it. With her raven hair perfectly curled, brushing against her shoulders and her red-lipped smile, she held her son. And she wore this very necklace.

I came and sat with him, wrapping my arms around him and kissing him. "Thank you, this is so lovely. I love it, I love you."

"There's no one more perfect to wear these pearls than you." He smiled, kissing my cheek. I noticed Christian looking away and biting his lip, but I didn't think anything more of it.

Later that night, we were all on the couches watching White Christmas. Jules and Amelia were going to spend the night and in the morning we were going to drop Amelia off at the train station. Christian got up from the couch, "Hey, it's almost midnight, I'm gonna get going now." He said.

"Really? The movie's almost over." Hudson replied.

"Yeah it's a long drive back to my place. But thank you everyone for the gifts, I hope you like yours."

We all told him that we loved our gifts, they were sweet and pretty much awesome. I got up and walked Christian to the door.

"Well, thanks for coming over Christian, it was fun." I smiled.

"Hey, do you think you could come downstairs with me? I wanna talk to you for a bit." He asked.

"Oh sure. Guys, I'll be right back, I'm just going downstairs." I called to the others. So I went downstairs with Christian till we were outside, I laughed and shivered from the cool night. "What did you wanna talk about?" I asked.

"Here, let's get in my car, it's warmer." He spoke, walking around his car and unlocking the doors. After I got in he started it and turned up the heat.

"So?" I smiled, relieved by the warm air coming from the vents.

"Um...well...so that was pretty nice up there. Thanks for inviting me." He gnawed at his lip, not looking at me and just staring ahead.

I furrowed my brow, "Yeah it was...is that what you brought me down here to say?"

He inhaled sharply, exhaled a staggered and nervous breath. He was nervous...this is a first. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.

"Christian? Are you alright?" I asked, turning in my seat to face him.

"No uh...I mean yes...I don't know..."

I shook my head feeling more confused than he was. I sighed, "Do you wanna talk about this on the 27th? When we're back at the office?"

"No!" He boomed. "Sorry, Avery. What I want to tell you is that...I wasn't drunk that night at Pianos."

I narrowed my eyes at him, "So you're saying you meant to...kiss me?"

"I like you Avery..."

I could feel my heart drop to my stomach as I swallowed hard, I closed my eyes. "As a friend...or more?"

"More."

I opened my eyes and looked at him. "Christian, I'm engaged and very much in love with Hudson. You know that. I can't give you more than what we already have."

He was silent for a long time, gazing at me. I could feel that same tension that I felt that night after the concert, in the back of the taxi. My heart pounded in my chest and I could almost feel the tension building and building within him. He lunged forward, cupping my face in his hands and his mouth meeting mine in a hard kiss, his teeth crashing against mine. In that moment he was pinning me against the door, his fingers eagerly running through my hair. His tongue dancing against mine, but I worked up the nerve to resist him. I shoved him back.

"Christian!" I yelled, looking behind me out the window, making sure no one was around to see that. "What the hell?!"

"Avery, you are everything to me. You are everything I want and everything that I will ever need. I told you that night that if I ever found a the one, I would willingly give up this lifestyle for her. Avery, I haven't gone on a date since Amelia. You are that woman."

I held my head. "Christian, you are so exasperating! Why are you doing this? We have a good thing, we're friends. We can talk to each other and laugh. Why are you throwing a wrench in this?!"

"You must feel the same way too, Avery. You talk to me in a way no one else does. You tell me things you can't even tell Hudson. Sometimes you'll look at me in a way that I look at you. And what about that cab ride home? Didn't you feel that?"

"No! No, Christian you need to understand, I don't feel that way. So okay, I find you attractive and easy to talk to, but it doesn't compare to how I feel about Hudson." I sighed, covering my face.

"Avery, I know you. Probably better than Hudson does-"

"Don't say that!" I snapped, "That's not true. Hudson knows me better than myself. That's why I'm marrying him."

"Please don't, Avery." He looked down.

"Don't what?" I was fuming.

"Don't marry him."

I was stunned. I honestly thought he had my best interest in mind, and now he throws this curveball at me tonight.

"Why?" I calmly spoke, containing my anger.

"Because I love you."